China Breaks 241 Low Temperature Records In 24hrs; Record Cold Hits The Baikal Region; Winter Returns To North America; + Minor CME Sparks Severe Geomagnetic Storm

China Breaks 241 Low Temperature Records In 24hrs

As forecast, Siberia’s record-breaking April cold sank south over the weekend, engulfing much of Northern/Eastern China.

However, the Arctic plunge proved fiercer than forecast, delivering frozen rains, heavy snows, and hundreds of record lows.

The late wintry cold spell sent the mercury crashing to unprecedented levels for the time of year. On Saturday April 22 alone, 241 stations in Northern China suffered their lowest-daily-highs ever recorded during the latter half of April.

China’s chill is forecast to intensify Monday, but then will mercifully wane as the week progresses.

Looking further ahead though, latest GFS runs foresee another polar outbreak hitting during the first week of May.

More to come…

Record Cold Hits The Baikal Region

As hinted at above, much of Siberia is enduring a Baltic spring of 2023.

The Baikal region, situated in southern Siberia, is witnessing “very cold weather,” reports hmn.ru.

In recent days, temperatures across the likes of Irkutsk and Buryatia have held some 9C below the seasonal norm, with nightfall bringing hard frosts and widespread lows of -12C (10.4F)–much lower in some spots–which have proved record-breaking.

The village of Orlik, for example, located in the Eastern Sayan Mountains, shivered through -22.6C (-8.7F) late last week — breaking the previous record of -21.3C (-6.3F) set back in 1959; while in Balagansk, Irkutsk region, -13.2C was noted, comfortably busting the old 1984 benchmark of -10.9C (12.4F).

Late-April snow has also been noted.

The past 24 hours delivered 14cm (5.5 inches) widely in the south and up to 50cm (20 inches) in the north.

And as with China, the Baikal region’s late-season freeze is forecast to linger.

Winter Returns To North America

Winter returned to much of Canada and practically ALL of the Lower 48 over the weekend, with the anomalous cold now spilling into the new week.

The cooldown is particularly noticeable in the Plains, where the mercury has nosedived below freezing and records are falling:

Americans should brace for much more where that came from.

Barring the West, which is expecting a long-overdue warm-up, the CONUS won’t see conditions even remotely resembling spring until the second week of May, at the absolute earliest.

The GFS paints the picture, with ‘blues’, ‘purples’ and ‘pinks’ engulfing the majority of country, indicating temperatures -6C to -20C what’s expected at this time of year:

While north of the border, into Canada, a remarkable -39.2C (-38.6F) was posted in Thomsen River, Northwest Territories on Sunday, which, would–if it had occurred a week later–have smashed the national record low for the month of May (-35C/-31F).

Elsewhere, -35.7C (-32.3F) was suffered on Stefansson Island, Nunavut over the weekend, and -25C (-13F) in northern Yukon.

Heavy snow is accompanying North America’s record cold, with the likes of Colorado–for example–receiving a walloping on Saturday.

Again, latest forecasts show yet more mid-spring snow on the horizon even as the calendar flips to May:

Amusingly, the MSM is on clear ‘damage limitation’; this year’s fierce cold and endless snow is proving a big frustration.

Winter is getting shorter, so says the establishment. According to one agenda-forwarding study, winter could be less than two months long by 2100, with summer lasting six months. “From the first falling leaves to snowmelt, we’re getting less and less time to hit the slopes and shred that powder — 2023 aside, of course,” reads a recent themanual.com article, which is laughable because even as real-world observations disprove the theory, the theory still prevails.

And it gets worse: this season’s all-time record-breaking snow is even being twisted to prove ‘global warming’.

Wim Thiery, a professor of climate science at the University of Brussels, says the record-breaking snowfall in the West was due to a buckling jet stream that funneled cold air from the Arctic. This is my contention, too; however, the mainstream attribution to this increasing phenomenon is, of course, ‘climate change’ (though they offer no real explanation as to how/why).

Moreover, and it must be stressed, the AGW theory NEVER predicted a weak and wavy (‘meridional’) jet stream flow; rather, this is another example of a ‘square’ real-world observation subsequently and forcibly being jammed into a ’round’ AGW hole.

Thiery then obfuscates away from the West’s historic snowpack and points to Europe’s comparatively snowless winter–which itself is something of a tall tale with Europe continuing to receive its wintry walloping later in the season: “By the end of the century (it’s) just going to be over … skiing in the Alps as we know it… In the future, these problems will get worse, because the snow will continue to melt as long as the climate warms.”

Well, it’s almost May, Thiery, yet the European Alps are expecting another meter-or-so of snow this week, falls that add to the major spring blizzards that hit last week.

Also, taking the daily snow depth in the Julian Alps–which stretch from NE Italy to Slovenia–a total of 733cm (24ft) has accumulated at the Gilberti hut this season, with 278cm (9ft) still on the ground as of mid-April and increasing:

While on Mt. Triglav (2514m), 926cm (30+ft) has accumulated in total making for a base of 350cm (11.5ft) which, again, is above the 1979-2022 average and rising:

During what has been dubbed a ‘snowless winter’, vast regions of the Alps are tracking above the norm thanks to a string late-season dumpings. If anything, Thiery, winter is extending later into the season, it’s hardly shortening.

Minor CME Sparks Severe Geomagnetic Storm

On April 21, a large magnetic filament snaking across the sun’s southern hemisphere exploded, hurling a cloud of debris toward Earth. Soon after the eruption, the US Air Force reported strong Type II and Type IV solar radio bursts.

Images from SOHO coronagraphs confirmed it was a “halo CME”, and one headed straight for Earth:

Models from NASA and NOAA agreed: the CME will reach Earth during the early hours of April 24 between 00:00 and 12:00 UT. The impact could spark G1- (Minor) to G2-class (Moderate) geomagnetic storms, they said.

However, the CME 1) arrived earlier than expected, hitting Earth’s magnetic field on April 23 at 1737 UT, and 2) sparked a severe G4-class geomagnetic storm, a KP-8, reports Dr Tony Philips of spaceweather.com.

Strong auroras soon spread across the skies of Europe.

So powerful was the display that it was even visible in brightly-lit urban areas.

Thomas Hunger sends this report from Berlin, Germany: “I run Northern Lights tours in Tromsø, Norway, but would have never dreamt of seeing auroras from my home town of Berlin. I stepped on the balcony and enjoyed a sight that in a city of 4 million inhabitants might just have been a once-in-a-lifetime experience.”

“My pulse is still racing!” said Heiko Ulbricht, who watched the same aurora show from Saxony, Germany. “There were bright green spots dancing across the sky all the way up to the zenith … This was a display not to be forgotten.”

Below is what Ulbricht saw:

Similar unusual ‘green blobs’ were photographed in Poland and even as far south as France.

Bright red auroras were also reported in China:

As the storm moved from Europe to the Americas, Todd Bush in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina saw this.

“I uploaded this snapshot, now I am going back for more as the auroras are looking better and better,” he said.

“Wowzah!”

As of early Monday morning–the time of writing–the storm is still ongoing, still producing visible auroras across North America, mincluding id-latitude sightings across the likes of North Carolina, Utah, Colorado, New Mexico, California and Oklahoma.

Dr Phillips estimates that auroras will have been sighted in more than 30 states before the night is over.

As discussed many times before, Earth’s ever-waning magnetosphere –likely occurring inline with a magnetic pole shift and perhaps low solar activity (as well as other poorly understood forcings)– is resulting in even minor solar outbursts having a larger than usual affect.

Our planet’s magnetic field strength is weakening, down some ≈20% from the 1800s. This waning is believed to be tied to two key factors: 1) low solar activity, and 2) our planet’s migrating magnetic poles.

As Earth loses its dipole magnetic shape –due to the shifting of its magnetic poles– the overall field strength weakens and its protective shield against potentially harmful space energy is reduced. This means every enhancement of the solar wind, every crossing of the Sun’s current sheet, and every CME has a larger and larger impact than it ordinarily would, both directly on the upper atmosphere, and also indirectly through the ionosphere’s equator-traveling waves that come from the aurora.

The weakening is accelerating.

In the year 2000, we knew the field had lost 10% of its strength since the 1800s, another 5% was lost by 2010, further accelerations occurred in 2015 and 2017 but we laymen were not privy to any additional loss data–with guesses on why that might be quickly sending you down a rabbit hole.

Migrating magnetic poles indicate that another ‘flip’ aka ‘reversal’ or ‘excursion’ may be on the cards, and ‘soon’.

Such an event would bring apocalyptic shifts in the geography and climate, it would seem like the ‘end of times’. Proxy records reveal regular upheavals in ancient past, the most notable being the ‘Laschamp excursion’ of approx. 42,000 years ago, although research suggests that these reversals/excursions actually occur on a much shorter periodicity, of 6,000 years — and we’re due.